No federal source describes one. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that limited research suggests use of psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and LSD does not typically lead to addiction, and that a small laboratory study found psilocybin, DMT and mescaline to be “weakly reinforcing” [1]. There is no recognized list of psilocybin withdrawal symptoms, no published day-by-day course for them, and nothing that a detox protocol exists to manage.
That is not the same as saying nothing happens afterwards, or that nothing can go wrong. People searching for mushroom withdrawal are usually describing something real: a flat, tired, unsettled few days; perceptions that keep returning; an experience they cannot put down; or a mental health condition that has worsened. This page takes each of those in turn, says what the evidence supports and what it does not, and sets out when a situation needs emergency help. The overview of the drug itself sits on our magic mushroom abuse page.
What the Evidence Says About Psilocybin and Dependence
NIDA’s position is narrow and worth quoting rather than paraphrasing. Under the heading “Are psychedelic and dissociative drugs addictive? Can people experience withdrawal?”, it says that “limited research suggests that use of psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin and LSD, does not typically lead to addiction”, and that a small laboratory study on psilocybin, DMT and mescaline “suggested that these psychedelic drugs are ‘weakly reinforcing’” [1].
Both hedges belong to the source and both matter. “Limited research” is not “no risk”, and “does not typically” is not “never”. What the sentence does rule out is the shape this page was originally going to take.
The one place NIDA uses the word withdrawal in this family of drugs is somewhere else entirely. It reports that laboratory research and a few human studies suggest using the dissociative drug ketamine outside a clinical setting can lead to cravings as well as symptoms of withdrawal [1]. Ketamine is a dissociative rather than a classic psychedelic, and nothing in that sentence transfers to psilocybin.
It also helps to separate two ideas that get used interchangeably. Addiction is defined as a chronic, relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use despite adverse consequences, and no single factor determines whether a person develops it [2]. That definition turns on behavior over time. A difficult week after a single experience is a different question, and our general page on withdrawal symptoms of alcohol and drugs covers the substances where a genuine syndrome is documented.
What People Searching for “Mushroom Withdrawal” Usually Mean
The word is doing a job here, even though the clinical thing behind it is not there. In practice, people arriving at this query are describing one of five situations.
The first is the comedown: the hours and days after an experience, when mood, sleep and appetite feel wrong. The second is perceptual: something from the experience keeps coming back uninvited. The third is psychological: an experience was frightening or destabilizing and has not settled since. The fourth is psychiatric: an existing condition looks worse than it did, or something new has appeared. The fifth is the pattern itself, where occasional use has stopped being occasional and nobody around the person is sure what to call that.
None of those five is a withdrawal syndrome, and calling them one would make them harder to describe accurately to a clinician rather than easier. All five are worth taking to one.
The Comedown, and the Days After
NIDA lists short-term side effects of psychedelic and dissociative drugs as headache, abdominal pain, nausea or vomiting, high blood pressure, rapid heartbeat, trembling and diarrhea [1]. It adds that people may feel extreme emotions such as fear, confusion or panic, and that these challenging experiences are also known as having a “bad trip” [1].
The safety issue during and immediately after an experience is not chemical, it is behavioral. NIDA states that people using these drugs may have impaired thought processes and perception that cause them to behave in unusual and sometimes dangerous ways, and that this may lead to injuries and other safety issues, particularly if there is not another individual present who can help prevent or respond to an emergency [1]. In a survey of almost 2,000 people who took psilocybin outside a medical setting and had a challenging experience, 11 percent said they had put themselves or others at risk of harm [1].
If someone is having a seizure, is unresponsive or has trouble breathing, call 911. For a mental health crisis, call or text 988.
No federal source pins a number of hours or days to the period afterwards, so no timeline appears here. If the days after an experience are consistently difficult, that is information for a clinician rather than something to measure against a chart.
Tolerance Builds Quickly, and What That Changes
This is the one pharmacological point that reliably surprises people. NIDA reports that some evidence suggests people may quickly develop a tolerance to psychedelic drugs, meaning they must keep taking more of the drug to experience the same level of effects [1].
Tolerance is not dependence and it is not addiction. It describes the body adapting, not a syndrome appearing when use stops. But it changes the risk arithmetic in a way that is easy to miss: if the same experience now takes more, then every acute risk in the section above is being met at a higher exposure than before. This page publishes no amounts, and there is no amount at which any of this becomes predictable.
What that pattern is worth doing is describing it out loud. How often, over how long, and whether the amount has been climbing are three of the questions an assessment starts with.
Getting an assessment rather than a timeline
The Recovery Village Umatilla is our campus in Umatilla, FL. Its own page publishes medical detox, inpatient treatment for substance use, inpatient rehab for mental health, partial hospitalization programming, outpatient programming and aftercare planning, so an assessment there can look at the substance use and the psychiatric picture together rather than one at a time.
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Perceptions That Keep Returning, and When They Need Care
This is the after-effect that sends people looking for a withdrawal page, and it has a name that is not withdrawal.
NIDA describes it in two stages. Some people report recurrently perceiving the same images or scenes, and having the same mood changes they experienced when they were under the influence of a psychedelic or dissociative drug sometime in the past [1]. These perceptions, or “flashbacks”, are typically mild and brief, lasting for seconds or minutes and occurring within a week of taking a substance [1].
Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder is the other end of that. People with HPPD report that these episodes last longer and can reoccur even years after an experience with a substance, causing distress and other problems that impact their lives [1].
Two things follow from the wording. The brief, mild version is common enough that NIDA describes it as something “some people report” rather than as a disorder. The version worth seeing someone about is the one defined by duration and by consequences: it keeps happening, it is distressing, and it is affecting how life works. That second description is a clinical picture, and distinguishing it from other causes of the same experience is not something a web page can do.
Psilocybin Alongside an Existing Mental Health Condition
Here the honest answer is that the evidence is thinner than the internet suggests in both directions. NIDA states plainly that more research is needed to better understand the long-term impacts of psychedelic and dissociative drugs on mental health [1].
What it does report is about the dissociatives rather than about psilocybin, and the attribution matters. Research suggests the dissociative drugs PCP and ketamine can make symptoms worse in people who have schizophrenia, and can cause short-term episodes of psychosis; PCP can also cause psychosis that persists for days to weeks [1]. Those are different compounds from psilocybin, and reading them across as if they were the same drug is the error this page is trying not to make.
The practical point stands whichever drug is involved. If a psychiatric diagnosis is already in the picture, or if something has changed since these experiences began, that belongs in the conversation early. Federal guidance on treatment is explicit that it should be tailored to address each patient’s drug use patterns and drug-related medical, mental and social problems, and that it should address the needs of the whole person [3]. Other substances in the picture belong in the same conversation, because they change what the acute risks are and make the account harder to read.
When to Call 911, and When to Call 988
Two different numbers for two different situations, and the distinction is worth knowing before it is needed.
Call 911 when someone is unresponsive, is having trouble breathing, is having a seizure, has been injured, or is at immediate risk of harming themselves or somebody else. NIDA’s own account of the acute danger is about behavior and its consequences rather than about poisoning, and it notes that the risk is higher when nobody else is present who could prevent or respond to an emergency [1].
Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline for a mental health crisis that is not a medical emergency [5]. SAMHSA says 988 offers 24/7 judgment-free support for mental health, substance use and more [5], and a crisis does not have to be about suicide to be the right reason to use it.
If someone is having a seizure, is unresponsive or has trouble breathing, call 911. For a mental health crisis, call or text 988.
For finding a provider rather than handling a crisis, SAMHSA’s National Helpline and the federal locator at FindTreatment.gov are where that search belongs [1].
How an Assessment Works, and What It Would Actually Address
An assessment is not an admission, and it is not an argument about whether a word like addiction applies.
Federal guidance frames placement as matching a patient’s clinical needs with the appropriate care setting in the least restrictive and most cost-effective manner, and it is candid that the criteria used are guidelines, with no uniform protocols for deciding which patients go into which level of care [4]. In other words, a clinician weighs the whole picture rather than running a checklist.
For someone arriving from this query, that picture has four parts: the pattern of use and whether it has been escalating, what else is being taken, what the experiences themselves have been like and what has persisted since, and what else is going on with mental health. Where the answer is that occasional use is genuinely occasional and nothing has persisted, an assessment says so, and that is a useful outcome rather than a wasted appointment.
Where something more is going on, the options are wider than most people expect. Our guide to the levels of care explains the continuum, outpatient rehab covers the end of it most people in this situation would start at, and how to get into rehab sets out the sequence. Our directory of rehab facilities lists the campuses we run, and how much rehab costs covers the question people are usually too embarrassed to ask first. Treatment that works is described as a course rather than an event, and a return to use after an attempt to stop can be part of that process rather than a verdict on it [3].
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a psilocybin withdrawal syndrome? No federal source describes one. NIDA reports that limited research suggests use of psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and LSD does not typically lead to addiction, and that a small laboratory study found psilocybin, DMT and mescaline to be “weakly reinforcing”. The only withdrawal NIDA attaches to this family of drugs is to the dissociative ketamine, which is a different compound.
Why do I feel flat and tired for days after taking mushrooms? No federal source puts a timeline on the period after an experience, so anyone giving you one is inventing it. What NIDA does document are short-term effects including headache, nausea, high blood pressure, rapid heartbeat and trembling, and extreme emotions such as fear, confusion or panic during a difficult experience. If the days afterwards are consistently hard, that is worth describing to a clinician rather than measuring against a chart.
What is HPPD, and when should someone see a clinician about it? Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder is when perceptions from a past experience keep returning. NIDA describes ordinary flashbacks as typically mild and brief, lasting seconds or minutes and occurring within a week of taking a substance. People with HPPD report episodes that last longer and can reoccur even years afterwards, causing distress and other problems that impact their lives. Duration and impact are what separate the two.
Do I need a medical detox to stop taking psilocybin? Detox exists to manage a withdrawal syndrome, and no federal source describes one for psilocybin. So the question detox answers is not the question here. What an assessment can address instead is the pattern of use, anything else being taken, what has persisted since, and any mental health condition in the picture, with placement matched to clinical need in the least restrictive setting that fits.
Is it dangerous to take mushrooms if I have a psychiatric diagnosis? NIDA says more research is needed on the long-term mental health impacts of these drugs. What it does report concerns the dissociatives: PCP and ketamine can worsen symptoms in people who have schizophrenia and can cause short-term episodes of psychosis, and PCP can cause psychosis that persists for days to weeks. Those are different compounds. If someone is in crisis, call or text 988; if they are unresponsive, injured or at risk of harm, call 911.
Sources
- National Institute on Drug Abuse. Psychedelic and Dissociative Drugs. National Institutes of Health. https://nida.nih.gov/publications/drugfacts/hallucinogens
- National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2020). Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction — Drug Misuse and Addiction. National Institutes of Health. https://nida.nih.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction/drug-misuse-addiction
- National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2020). Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction — Treatment and Recovery. National Institutes of Health. https://nida.nih.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction/treatment-recovery
- Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. (2006). Detoxification and Substance Abuse Treatment, Chapter 2: Settings, Levels of Care, and Patient Placement. Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series No. 45, SAMHSA. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK64109/
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health/988
This page is for general information and is not medical advice. Only a licensed clinician who knows your history can tell you what is right for you. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911. For free, confidential support 24/7, call or text 988.
Author
Chief Medical Officer,
The Recovery Village
